That’s where that trio is today, along with their now-acknowledged advisor, Pueblo County Transportation Director Greg Severance.

Also with them is Jack Rink, president of the Pueblo Economic Development Corp.

The trip, urged by Kaufman, is intended to show how that city attracts new employers other than just paying them to move there.

But with readers of The Pueblo Chieftain poring over revealing emails between Severance and the three council members, the trip has put some distance between them and local officials and business owners who are treated with some contempt and disdain in the emails.

“I’m sorry they went ahead with that trip because the public’s perception isn’t good,” said Councilman Steve Nawrocki.

For him, emails show a covert collaboration between those three council members and Severance on the major issues facing the city this year — the future of the half-cent tax, council’s refusal to loan $14.5 million to the Pueblo Urban Renewal Authority, and how to create mandatory trash collection.

An immediate result of the disclosure of the emails is local trash haulers have filed their own records request for emails by city staff that relate to council’s decision to hire a much-contested trash consultant.

Becky Cortese, co-owner of C&C Disposal, was “shocked” to read Severance’s emails to the trio referring to local haulers as “mafia haulers” and a “street gang.” Or, in another message, to call her husband, Frank Cortese, a “pimp.”

“If (The Chieftain) had such success getting to what was really happening behind the scenes, we decided to file our own request for records,” she said. “I think the public is pretty upset about this kind of conduct.”

The haulers will be in Pueblo District Court on Friday disputing City Clerk Gina Dutcher’s decision to disqualify their ballot petitions asking voters to stop the city from hiring the consultant.

Monday, the Pueblo County commissioners took no official action regarding Severance.

Commissioners called an executive session to discuss a personnel matter, but Commissioner Terry Hart said that anyone whose job is discussed in executive session has the right to be present, and Severance was out of state.

Severance is currently in Oklahoma City.

Councilman Chris Nicoll said the emails confirm his complaint all summer — that Kaufman, Daff and Ami Nawrocki still have an agenda to change the use of the city’s $40 million in half-cent revenue for job creation.

“That’s why you see the emails from Severance about how to shoot down (PURA’s) request for the loan to build the exhibition hall onto the Pueblo Convention Center,” he said. “They clearly don’t want to deplete that ($40 million) fund.”

Nicoll protested earlier this summer that council was having illegal meetings behind closed doors about the half-cent tax.

“It looks like they switched to illegal online meetings,” he said.

Jim Munch, executive director of the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk of Pueblo, said getting the $14.5 million loan from the city would save $12 million in interest payments, but a majority of the council — Kaufman, Daff, Ami Nawrocki, Ed Brown and Eva Montoya — refused on two different votes.

“At the time, I told (PURA Executive Director) John Batey that our financial arguments were falling on deaf ears, that council was seeing this as some kind of political decision,” he said. “It was disheartening to read the emails and realize they were going to refuse no matter what we said.”

Ken Conyers of Matrix Design Group and a PEDCO board member, was called a “poser” by Severance in an email to Ami Nawrocki and described as someone who should be kicked off the board in reforming PEDCO. Conyers has been a PEDCO member for eight years.

He worked with Severance for a time at Matrix, but Severance was fired by Colorado Springs management.

“I don’t care what Greg thinks of me personally. He’s part of that small cadre of people who want to change PEDCO and what we use the half-cent money for,” Conyers said. “I was as surprised as anyone, though, to see how involved he was with council on the issue this summer.”

Barbara Vidmar, the incoming PEDCO board chairman, is also a former councilwoman.

“I was speechless to see all the messaging about city business and then their references to switching to private email,” she said. “How much of the public’s business are they deciding in private? That is so disrespectful to other council members and our entire community.”

Chris Markuson, the county’s director of economic development, was scorned by Severance as a “coffee shop rat” who would run and tell PEDCO officials anything Severance leaked to him — which Severance relied on to “instill fear among the wolves.”

Markuson called the disdain Severance showed for trash haulers disappointing.

“It was also frustrating to find out that my colleagues have been working to undermine the efforts of my office,” he said. “However, it is the closed-door, backroom deals, political maneuvering and petty name-calling that continue to hold us back.”

Commissioner Liane “Buffie” McFadyen defended Severance’s actions Sunday, saying it was appropriate that he be involved in council’s PURA loan discussions because a loan might be possible through the Pueblo Area Council of Governments and Severance’s salary largely comes from city funds to that organization.

But Batey, PURA director, dismissed that idea Monday, sending a statement to The Chieftain that PACOG had never been considered or approached as a funding source for the exhibition hall.